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toblix

Mafia II

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Playboy with guns.

I have a feeling this game is going to drop in price very quickly, simply due to the sadly low reviews it seems to be receiving. I'm still not sure about it, so I'll pick it up then. That said, I do love the era.

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I'm not going to read any bad reviews before I've gotten to play this more, but I've done the first ten minutes of it and so far I'm impressed. The combat – the little there was – felt nice, the graphics and look was excellent, and the short section walking from the cab and up to the apartment felt very nicely put together. Obviously I'm still in the part where they wow me with awesome stuff, but at least I'm convinced they have the engine and talent to do so.

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This is ridiculous! There's no way of turning the GPS off! They even have the guy give me directions as he's talking – "make a right over there," etc. – and then they won't let me turn off the stupid guideline that makes everything awful. How hard can it be to make this an option? I'm not playing this any more until they patch that shit in.

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Just finished it. Unlike the original game, the ending is really flat and lame. I even feel the entire plot is kinda cheap compared to the first game. The graphics and tech is amazing. Even the gameplay is decent, i.e shooting, driving etc feels alright. But the story comes out as the weakest link.

Also, just realized that the original game had a free play mode which unlocked after the end. You could drive around in any car and complete some challenges or cause the usual havoc around the city. This game however doesn't have anything of that sort. It just ends, credits roll and back to main screen. You can look at the unlocked concept art, wanted posters or playboy magazines. You can browse the "car-cyclopedia" featuring models of the 42 cars in the game, but that's about it. I guess I feel cheated. The game even feels unfinished.

Another thing, there were working trains and trams in the original game, which could be used by the player as viable means of transport. I believe they even forced the player to use them in one of the missions. There are visible train tracks around the city in Mafia 2 but no trains, not even AI trains. Just empty train tracks. I know it's a weird thing to complain about, but I was expecting features from the original game to be maintained and built upon, not cut entirely.

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Yeah, I heard about the missing trains (and some other missing stuff) in the forums, searching for a way to disable the horrible game-destroying GPS trail, and it seems they've been cutting a bunch of stuff that was mentioned in interviews and even shown in trailers. I'm a bit surprised to hear this, because the little I played of the game seemed incredibly polished. Some people are talking about 2K holding stuff back for DLC, but I doubt they'll release the Mafia II Train Pak anytime soon.

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Its possible that I am unable to tell a good story from bad one but I loved Mafia II, story in all. First off all the combat and driving feels fine, I especially like fist fights which seems different from everyone else on the internet. I thought the world was awesome, I am interested in the time period and they brought it hard in this one, the radio stations rock, fake advertisements look great, cars have AMAZING damage modeling. Its a great looking and playing package.

Now onto the story. Yes there were plot holes, whats up with his sister? Why should I care about his mother? Who is this guy I am shooting?(in the very end). People are criticizing the game for taking too many queues from "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas". And while I have never seen all of Goodfellas, what I have seen is very good. Why is it a problem to take from other pieces of mob themed content? Especially one of which being one of the best movies of all time(my opinion). So what if someone in a movie had a body in the back of the trunk and in Mafia II there is a body in the back of the trunk. That scene in the game was one of my favorite, it gave the characters a sense of familiarity to me. Out for a night on the town get drunk, have to bury body, drive home singing obnoxiously to a radio tune which you can't change, fucking great. Other parts like the fighting (don't know how to do spoilers so left the spoiler out) sections were cool, you have to fight to survive, there is light racism, the guards are douches. It felt right.

The later half really ramps up with death of characters and suspense all over the place, and maybe I am a sucker, but it was great. Sure the ending was lackluster but it was left up to interpretation, my ending is very cruel to the main characters, its the nature of the business. Others might have all the characters live happily ever after. Sadly most people bitch about this because they like being told what happens from the people who made the game.

Overall I really dig this game and its well on its way to being my GOTY.

Side-note: I am playing the pc version and installed the free ride mod so I can just drive around the city in all the cars, pre-order dlc or not. Chalk one up for the PC!

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I've been losing quickly my interest in the game since reading various reviews. for example the RPS take on it I read first.

I thought the demo was interesting and really well done. I totally fell in love with the beautiful city and it's scenery and it made me want to play the full game, but user reviews and site reviews are quickly turning my opinion to not playing this game.

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If it helps, I've completed the first 3 chapters and am really enjoying it. After playing Mafia (the first) less than a month ago, this feels like a true evolution of it. The same good parts about the first game, but polished to an unbelievable shine and given a much less frustrating combat system. I only wish they'd held over some of the harshness of the police from the first game. I seem to be able to get away with WAY more crap than I did before, and so feel less inclined to role-play it. Also, though it screwed me a few times, the fact that any unused ammo in a gun that didn't have ammo loaded one round at a time (ie: shotgun) got dropped on the ground when you dropped a clip to reload was really cool. I miss that in Mafia 2, with the game going over to the standard "your overall ammo count remains the same, but now your magazine is magically full" mechanic from most games. Oh well.

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I played 33% of the game last weekend and I'm liking it quite a bit too. The guy in the trunk mission was indeed brilliant. As someone, who really dislikes certain aspects of action packed action games such as Uncharted, I really enjoy it when the game lets me walk 50 meters without having to kill 20 guys on the way.

I'm having a bit of hard time relating to a protagonist who

considers doing honest work for literally less than five minutes before resorting to crime

, though.

I only wish they'd held over some of the harshness of the police from the first game. I seem to be able to get away with WAY more crap than I did before, and so feel less inclined to role-play it. Also, though it screwed me a few times, the fact that any unused ammo in a gun that didn't have ammo loaded one round at a time (ie: shotgun) got dropped on the ground when you dropped a clip to reload was really cool. I miss that in Mafia 2, with the game going over to the standard "your overall ammo count remains the same, but now your magazine is magically full" mechanic from most games. Oh well.

I missed these features as well, especially the police giving me a ticket if I fail to stop at the red lights. However, pressing reload every time I'm behind a cover is rooted so deep in me that I would probably loose a lot of bullets at first. On the other hand, that's how it was in the original Mafia too, I guess.

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I'm having a bit of hard time relating to a protagonist who

considers doing honest work for literally less than five minutes before resorting to crime

, though.

Hahaha. Yeah, I tried to get him to

actually load every single box onto that truck, despite how much the character bitched about it. I believe I got to 6 before the game actually refused to let me continue. The option to pick up a 7th box just never appeared.

You can't do it. Oh well.

I missed these features as well, especially the police giving me a ticket if I fail to stop at the red lights. However, pressing reload every time I'm behind a cover is rooted so deep in me that I would probably lose a lot of bullets at first. On the other hand, that's how it was in the original Mafia too, I guess.

Yeah, it could be frustrating, but I found it really added to the tension. Is it worth sacrificing those 12 shots from my tommy gun to go into the next firefight as prepared as I can be? Shit! As I said, it screwed me a couple of times, as the "fire 5 rounds, hit 'r' first chance you get" reflex has been really trained into me as well, but I came around and found it to be a really cool decision that I wish a lot more games would ape.

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It's rather frustrating that 99,9% (all except some hardcore military sims) of the countless FPS and TPS share the lame bullet-counter approach with complete disregard of clips. And what's even more frustrating is the fact, that many games even screw up on the reload mechanic itself. Often enough there is only one static animation sequence for a reload and so it happens that you rack the slide every time no matter what. And another classic: double-barrelled guns with always both barrels beeing reloaded.

About the game:

I don't own the game yet.

I've been losing quickly my interest in the game since reading various reviews. for example the RPS take on it I read first.

Same here!

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It's rather frustrating that 99,9% (all except some hardcore military sims) of the countless FPS and TPS share the lame bullet-counter approach with complete disregard of clips. And what's even more frustrating is the fact, that many games even screw up on the reload mechanic itself. Often enough there is only one static animation sequence for a reload and so it happens that you rack the slide every time no matter what. And another classic: double-barrelled guns with always both barrels beeing reloaded.

This thread just became about which Thumbs are in paramilitary groups that want to overthrow the government. :mock:

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For PS3 people, if you order this from Zavvi, it's like £5.28 http://bit.ly/ahDM9p just add it your basket and it shows the discount. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is like £4.70 as well for the same reason (although what that reason is, I don't know), and so for the two of them, it's less than a tenner.

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That's not entirely fair. From what I have played, the game IS good. It just doesn't deliver on everything that people wanted it to. Still worth a play though.

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As for me, I plan on playing it but i'm not sure my PC is 100% up to the task so I will probably just wait a few months until I build my next PC. I was pretty fanatical about the first. I don't expect this one to live up to the narrative quality judging from the previews i've seen thus far.

I'm just quoting myself because this turned up being true. It does, however run fine on my PC, I was impressed with that.

I wish they would bring back hidden & dangerous.

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Unless RPS is lying, I'm not touching the game. I don't see what I liked about Mafia in this game at all.

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Well, for jazz, one of the two songs that would play while you're driving in Mafia is now the background music when you go clothes shopping. Otherwise, there's a bunch more jazz in there. Music is a good'n, so lay your mind to rest on that. The cars do feel much more powerful, but we're also talking 20+ years later, and for ther period they still feel appropriate. Can't really speak to the characters yet, but I'm enjoying the dialog at least.

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Joe is such a great character, he is like that one friend everyone has, he is loud, rude, and short tempered, the brawn's of the operation. But somehow he still is able to be lovable. And Vito, even though he has been criticized for being an empty husk that does what ever anyone tells him to, is the brains of the operation, the one that will do some sneaking and not just go in guns blazing. But most importantly the reason Vito does what everyone tells him to is that he just wants to be respected and have enough money to support himself and his family (Frankie and his mother). But trying to do what everyone says does end up going horribly awry and Vito then turns into a character that just wants to make things right.

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Well, for jazz, one of the two songs that would play while you're driving in Mafia is now the background music when you go clothes shopping. Otherwise, there's a bunch more jazz in there.

Duke Ellington, perchance?

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